As soon as they crossed the portal's threshold, they were noticed—Cael easily felt intent attention from both the bats in the sky and people inside the castle. Like polite guests they were, Cael, Ginevra and Mimi didn't go further than the premises of the strange place as they waited for the hosts to meet them.
From inside, the sub-space looked smaller than from the outside. The border of it went barely fifteen meters away from the sides of the castle, ending with a glass-like barrier that showed green fields of the outside world. Even the sky looked extremely low.
After just a minute, the castle's grand gate opened. A group of six armed men in closed armor walked outside, led by a middle-aged man with short white hair and piercing blue eyes, dressed in flowing black and red robes. All the vampires were extremely pale, but had a skin free of any blemishes or birthmarks; and all they had strange, inhuman auras.